This announcement states that Atari and Hasbro have settled their legal dispute from 2009, when Hasbro sued Atari alleging fraud and "five different breaches of their licensing agreement for the Dungeons & Dragons brand" and Atari claimed these allegations were "meritless" and "an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari" (thanks hplovescats from RPGnet). Fair or not, word is: "Digital licensing rights for Dungeons & Dragons have been returned to Hasbro. Atari will continue to develop and market several games under license from Hasbro and Wizards, including the #1 Xbox LIVEŽ hit Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale and the upcoming Heroes of Neverwinter for Facebook. Additional settlement details remain private." The announcement also includes word that the completion of Perfect World's purchase of Cryptic Studios from Atari will result in a delay to Neverwinter, the co-op D&D RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. The game was announced last August for release this year, but here's word that the game is now due late next year:

In addition, the acquisition of Cryptic Studios by Perfect World Entertainment Inc. from Atari in July 2011 has delayed the Neverwinter PC Game scheduled for release later this year. Perfect World will be investing in a more immersive experience for release in late 2012.

I assume this good news. Atari hasn't done anything worthwhile with the D&D license, although I actually did like Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil. While it didn't have much of a story, they did a really great job of being faithful to the 3.5 edition combat rules, which made for some great tactical battles, especially with the Circle of Eight patches. It's a great game for trying out different party builds and fighting some great turn-based battles.